Assassin's Creed Revival
by AussieNick
Summary: Four years of wandering aimlessly have aged 18-year-old Ryan Williamson. Four years since his parents, brother and sister were kidnapped and his home destroyed. Four years without answers. Until 1998, when Ryan learns the secret life his father kept from him.
1. Chapter 1

_September 1st, 1998_

 _Los Angeles, California_

George Mackenzie's office was mostly dark, lit only by the desk lamp that permitted him to work. He'd removed his jacket and tie and rolled up the sleeves of his white business shirt while a fan sat running in the corner atop a filing cabinet. The windows were closed by the blinds were open, giving a decent view of Los Angeles.

The fan made the room bearable in the September heat. This was a particularly hot day, with temperatures estimated at nearly thirty degrees Celsius. That was what George had always hated about Los Angeles; it could get unbearably hot sometimes.

George had been born in England, but spent most of his childhood in the Australian city of Launceston, Tasmania. Rarely would he have ever had to deal with hot weather.

That had been until he was thirteen, and his normal life had been shattered. His aunt and uncle – James and Celia – had been killed. Their children, Lewis and Moira, had come to Australia to live with their only living relatives, which included their only cousin; George Mackenzie.

Lewis and Moira never set foot in Tasmania. George's parents had scrambled to move to the Gold Coast in Queensland, where they'd then meet Lewis and Moira. The cousins had been a year older than George, but age hadn't mattered much after James and Celia had died. They'd been lost, and George had been their only friend once they arrived in Australia.

Being born in England, Moira and Lewis had never been close with George, but it had only been two months before they'd began to warm to Australia. The Gold Coast was as beautiful a city as the same suggested and – to Moira and Lewis – a welcome change to England.

The fun hadn't lasted, but at least the three of them had managed to stay together in their own way, despite being on different continents years later. Lewis had returned to England and George had moved to America while Moira stayed in Australia. Now, George was thirty-two and the cousins were thirty-three, and they were back together again. If only it had been under better circumstances.

Unable to stand the heat any longer, George marched out of his office and into the bathroom of his quarters, stripping down and stepping into the shower. The cold water was a relief from the exhaustion and weariness that had followed George around for the past four years. Ever since Charlie and his family had 'disappeared', he'd been overworked and tired, desperate to ensure that centuries of work wouldn't be undone.

George had the benefit of not having to worry about how much water he used, but he knew staying awake for too long would just make the next day of work harder, so he stepped out of the shower after two minutes (which felt much too short). He couldn't help but groan at the thought of working in the September heat. Sometimes he wondered how his cousins – Lewis and Moira – managed to do their part in the Los Angeles heat and not be exhausted at the end of the day.

As he dried himself off and slipped into some clean clothes, someone knocked on the door to his quarters. He called for them to enter, and Lewis stepped into the room. Lewis had the typical nerd appearance, but in the 'I'm a rich dickhead' kind of way. Blonde hair combed back, thin spectacles, black suit and white shite with no tie and the top button undone. He looked like he could be the next Donald Trump, which he could if he wanted to.

"Moira just paged me," he said quietly in a tone of excitement. "She said she'd meet us here and that she had big news."

"No specifics?" George asked with a yawn, hoping that this 'big news' was worth a few extra minutes without sleep.

Lewis shook his head. "Nope. Honestly, I thought you'd be more interested. We haven't had any good news in four years."

Moira barged into the room without bothering to knock, which made George more irritated than he already was. He didn't bother calling her out on it though; he was too tired for a fight.

"This better be good," he grumbled, sitting down on the living room couch. "I could fall asleep on concrete right now."

Moira sat down on the lounge chair across from him and brushed strands of messy blond hair out of her eyes. "It is good. We've tracked down Ryan Williamson."

Lewis and George had been slouching in their seats, only to practically leap out of their seats with a mix of disbelief and excitement.

"Y-You're sure it's him?" Lewis stammered.

Moira nodded. "He's using an alias, of course, but he's only been gone for four years and he looks pretty much the same. He's Charlie Williamson's boy all right."

"Where is he?" George asked, feeling newly energized by the news. They'd learnt of the fates of Charles Williamson, his wife Kathleen, and their two oldest children Keith and Julia, by Ryan had been unaccounted for ever since the family home was raided.

"Working a construction job here in L.A," Moira informed them. "That's not all. Troy spied out his shitty apartment one night. He's got his father's wrist blade as well. Troy saw him taking it apart and cleaning it."

George exchanged a look with Lewis. "You don't think he plans on using it, do you?"

Moira shrugged. "Hard to say. He could be keeping it as just a memento, but maybe he's found one of the people involved in his family's kidnapping."

"Then we need to tail him," Lewis said. "If he assassinates an Abstergo associate he'll have no chance of disappearing again. It's the best chance to contact him."

"Hold on," George said, sitting back down. "We don't even know if he has found someone from Abstergo."

"We do," Moira told him. "The construction job Ryan's working on is managed by a Mr Julian Wallace. He's been on our hit list for ten years and we know that he led the raid on the Williamson home. It can't be a coincidence that they're in the same place."

"Then we need to move now," George said. "Moira, take two of Ethan's group and watch over the construction site. Bring Ryan in, but kill Wallace if you see the chance. Lewis, tell Troy to get on the radio and start broadcasting false reports. If Abstergo thinks we're about to hit them somewhere else, then getting to Ryan and Wallace shouldn't be hard."

As the two left, George let the bittersweet reality settle in; Ryan Williamson had been the one child Abstergo had failed to find four years ago, and maybe finding him would be like having Charles back I a way. But did Ryan even have anything to offer them? Would he even want to help them?

George hadn't seen Ryan for four years, and Ryan had probably just seen him as one of his father's many friends. Would he even remember George as anything other than a vaguely familiar face?

With the exhaustion of the day setting in, George stripped into his boxers and settled into bed, wishing that the fan on his dresser was twice as powerful. Banishing all thoughts of Ryan, Charlie, Abstergo, and the Assassins from his mind, he finally settled into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Ryan Williamson hated his job. It wasn't because he didn't enjoy construction. In fact, a decent day of work brought him some small joy, but working in the heat just made him irritable and long for the air-conditioned interior of a café on Venice Beach. Being 18, he couldn't drink alcohol, so he always settled for Pepsi instead. Besides, it wasn't the time for getting wasted. There was work to be done.

He'd recognized the man overseeing the construction job near Venice Beach. He'd seen Julian Wallace four years ago when his family had been taken from him. Ryan had watched from across the street as armed men dragged his father Charles out of their ransacked house. Wallace had delivered a punch to the man's gut, before carting Ryan's father, mother, and siblings away.

Wallace hadn't changed his appearance at all since then. Earlier in the day, he'd shown up to bark at the construction crew for their poor progress, and he'd worn the same grey suit and tie that he had then. His hair was the same steel grey, his eyes the same pale blue. His sneer unchanged. Ryan had almost lost his temper right there.

Sitting at his table inside the café, Ryan gentled pressed a finger to the inside of his left wrist, feeling comforted by the feeling of a metal blade underneath the fake bandage. He'd told everyone at work that the bandage was for a burn, but it in fact kept the blade nicely hidden inside. He'd gotten the blade to work two months after running away, and tested it countless times since to make sure it was still working. He hoped the blade, and his nerves, wouldn't fail him tomorrow.

He suddenly became aware of two people standing over him, and looked up to see a young man and a woman standing next to his table.

"Mind if we sit down?" The woman asked, in a British accent. Or maybe it was Australian.

Ryan shrugged. "Go ahead."

The pair sat down across from him. Ryan studied the two. The man was fairly young, maybe twenty-five at most, with black greasy-looking hair that was combed back and a rather sly-look. The woman was a few years over, with an athletic figure and shoulder-length blonde hair that was rather messy.

There was an awkward silence in which the pair exchanged a look, then the woman sighed and said, "Alright. May as well get down to business."

Ryan raised an eyebrow at her as she took a photograph from her pocket and handed it to him. Ryan looked down at the photograph, and a face jumped out at him.

"Where'd you get this?" he asked her, giving the woman a blazing look.

"That was taken four years ago," the woman said. "My name's Moira Mackenzie. Our families were very close before yours vanished."

She gestured back down to the photograph, and Ryan looked at it again. He saw his parents, Charles and Kathleen, with Moira and several other people. Suddenly, this Moira woman looked familiar.

"I remember you," he told Moira, handing the photograph back. "That party was a week before they took my family away. Dad never explained what it was for."

Moira nodded. "Our families were very close, but I'm not surprised that your dad told you about us. He was probably planning on telling you when you were older."

"Tell me what?" Ryan asked.

Moira looked around the café nervously, then said, "It's too public here. We'll walk out to the beach. You finish your drink and join us when you're done. Then we'll talk."

The two were up and out of the door before Ryan could say a word. For a full minute, he simply sat and tried to contemplate the weirdest conversation of his life.

He had given up hope of ever seeing his father again, or any of his family. With the sudden appearance of this Moira woman, maybe now he would have at least some closure. Even if they were all dead, maybe he could finally get a clear answer.

He felt numb and out of place as he finished his Pepsi. The cold glass bottle didn't feel real in his hands. The air-conditioned café looked artificial somehow.

Eventually, he snapped out of his trance-like state, drained the last of his Pepsi, and walked out of the café and toward the beach. He spotted Moira and the man immediately, sitting on the sand watching the waves. He sat down next to Moira, noticing as she stared out at the sea how very young she looked.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she whispered. Ryan had to admit, the site was breathtaking; sparkling water that went on forever, clashing against an orange sky.

"Never really noticed how beautiful this place could be," Ryan admitted. "I guess I was always just preoccupied."

Moira smiled. "I used to love the beach when I was a kid. We'd be out at the beach every second we could, my brother and cousin and I."

"You're Australian, then?" Ryan asked.

"Yes and no," replied Moira. "I was born in England, but my brother and I moved to Australia to live with our aunt and uncle after our parents died. We all lived together on the Gold Coast in Queensland. The beach up there is amazing. I would have stayed if I could."

"Why didn't you?" asked Ryan.

"It's…pretty complicated. Life was pretty normal for us like you. We didn't know about your family, just like you didn't know about ours. My brother Lewis and I were fifteen when we found out, and our cousin George was a year older. That was when our aunt and uncle told us the truth."

"The truth about what?" Ryan asked, getting irritated at the lack of real answers.

Moira held up her wrist, which was covered by an arm band. Just before a flash of light made Ryan blink, he caught a glimpse of a blade glinting in the light.

Moira shifted her wrist so that the blade didn't shine light in his face, and Ryan held up his own bandaged wrist. His blade jutted out of a slit in the bandage. His was significantly less polished than hers, but the two blades were more or less identical.

"Your father and mother were Assassins," Moira told him, her blade sliding back into her armband silently. "I am too, and so are my brother and cousin."

"'Assassins'," he repeated stupidly.

"Ever heard of the Hashashin?" Moira asked.

Ryan racked his brain, and found that the name sounded vaguely familiar. He nodded.

"Well, that was us," Moira said. "We've been underground ever since the Third Crusade. An Assassin by the name of Altair Ibn-La'Ahad was responsible from hiding us from the general public, and our enemies; the Templars."

That was a name he recognized. A part of his brain told him that this woman was either lying or crazy, and that he should just leave here and now. And yet, despite how unbelievable her story was, Ryan believed her. This woman, with a hidden blade identical to his and a proven link to his family, had captivated him. Turning away now would leave him with nothing, and he couldn't accept that now that his hopes had been built up so quickly. He wanted to know more. Even if his family was dead or out of reach, he would at least know more. And maybe he would even find some kind of place with these Assassins…

"The Templars," he finally said. "Do they still exist?"

Moira nodded. "They do, although they're underground like us, but not in the same way. They operate publicly under the name of Abstergo Industries."

Ryan's ears pricked at that name. Of course, everyone knew about Abstergo Industries; they'd been responsible for most scientific and medical achievements of the past twenty years. But Ryan had a special interest in Abstergo.

For two months, he had been working on a construction job in Venice Beach. The construction company had been hired by none other than Abstergo for the job. Ever since construction began, a higher-up from the corporation had been visiting the site personally to oversee the progress.

"Abstergo's got us working on an office building," Ryan told Moira.

"I know. We've been keeping an eye on it."

"Why are you enemies?" Ryan asked.

"Difference of opinion really," Moira said, rolling her eyes as if the reason was petty. "The Templars and Assassins both want one thing, Ryan; world peace. The problem is that we don't agree on how it should be done. The Templars don't think that peace and free will can co-exist. They believe that free will is a burden, and that true power of any kind can only be handled by a select few of our race. We believe differently. For generations, the Assassins have believed not in governing the world themselves, but working to ensure the free will of people to create peace through their own means. We're not out to run the world like the Templars are. We want peace to be a choice by all of humankind."

"You think that can happen?" asked Ryan sceptically.

Moira shrugged. "I don't know, to be honest. But think about how many times the world has almost ended. "The Black Death, the Cold War, and terrorism today. Even with all the violence in this world, people manage to go on. It's not an easy world, but will it be any better than a world under Templar rule? Where nobody thinks for themselves? I'll take my chances the way the world is now."

Ryan spent a full minute taking this all in. It made sense, but he couldn't help but feel rather sorry for the Assassins. How hard must it have been to watch from the shadows as people turned toward violence and war, giving their enemies a reason to be right.

"Have you ever thought you were wrong?" Ryan asked quietly.

Moira smiled sadly. "You don't spend ten years as an Assassin without wondering if your enemies are right. It's hard, trying to defend your cause when the world seems like it's trying to prove you wrong. It's the hardest war any of us ever fight."

The sun had set now, the sky turning from orange to purple. Moira stood up and brushed herself off. "We'd better go meet the others. We've got a room and meals ready for you at our base. We've got a lot to talk about tomorrow."

"One more thing, who's he?" Ryan said, pointing to the young man next to her. "You shouldn't get into cars with strangers."

The man, who had maintained a stony expression all day, gave him a friendly grin that exposed a few missing teeth. "I'm Ethan. You're Ryan. So now we know each other."


End file.
